Modern telephone systems are invariably computer controlled; i.e. computers and computer processors perform functions such as call switching, respond to calls automatically, generate error messages on detecting malfunctions, and otherwise implement stored programs and subroutines to operate the telephone system. Other features may be added to enhance the use of the telephone system to be convenient or user friendly. For example, the telephone system may be menu driven by inputs from a telephone keypad to provide user selected functions such as obtaining one's credit card balance or one's telephone bill balance over a touch tone capable telephone.
Some telephone systems automatically distribute incoming or inbound calls among a plurality of telephone stations. These automated call distribution (ACD) systems have been applied, for example, to route inbound telephone calls to telephone stations assigned to specific personnel or inbound agents. In other applications, outbound telephone calls may be initiated by an ACD using automated dialers and predictive dialing techniques, and the ACD then transfers the established calls to outbound agents. ACDs may employ call queues and various distribution algorithms and methods, implemented in software, to enhance performance of the overall telephone system. Some of the above features of ACD are described in greater detail in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/123,309, filed Sep. 17, 1993, which is incorporated herein by reference.
ACD telephone systems also may implement monitor or supervisor features; i.e. facilities allowing a supervisor to track the ACD in the telephone system and to evaluate the performance of the personnel or agents in the telephone system. For example, in a telemarketing system such as described in the above incorporated U.S. patent application, a system administrator may display information on a display screen to show the status of the telemarketing campaign and the performance and status of each agent.
To insure proper operation of these computerized telephone systems, such supervising systems are employed separately or as part of the telephone system to allow a system supervisor or administrator to access the information processed by the telephone system, to setup or reconfigure its operation, and to interact with users of the system; i.e. callers or telephone system personnel.
Although agents are assigned to individual telephone stations, individual agents may not be present at their corresponding telephone stations at all times. To avoid automatically distributing an inbound call to an unoccupied telephone station and thus delaying the response to a waiting call, it would be advantageous to integrate the monitoring system with an automated personnel locating system, such as the locating system described in commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/087,394, filed Jul. 2, 1993, which is incorporated herein by reference. The aforesaid locating system includes a plurality of remote units such as badges which may be worn by people, attached to objects, or incorporated in equipment. The badges wirelessly transmit information including badge identification (ID) information to a nearby stationary transceiver. The stationary transceiver further transmits the badge information to a central computer for processing and identifying the badge and its location. For example, in a hospital environment, staff and patients may be located and audio, video, or data communications may be transmitted throughout the hospital facility; i.e. to a nurse control station, to selected patient stations, and/or to staff stations to achieve enhanced patient care.
In an agent supervising system for an ACD environment for inbound and/or outbound calls, it would be advantageous for an automated locating system operatively coupled to the ACD to provide the agent supervising system with location and information of the agents. The system according to the present invention provides such an integrated supervising system for use in conjunction with a locating system. The system according to the present invention also provides a visual map on the supervisor display to graphically locate each agent and telephone station for a supervisor to efficiently locate specific personnel and objects during ACD operation.
ACD systems having supervising monitoring capabilities have been described. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,425 to Darland et al. discusses a system for monitoring the operation of an automated dialing system. Menus, windows, and icons in a graphical computer interface are employed to permit a supervisor to select various options and to display further information.
Given the available monitoring systems including the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,101,425 which is incorporated herein by reference, there is a need for an ACD system having improved data and status collection in conjunction with enhanced conveyance techniques for an ACD supervisor. The system according to the present invention provides an ACD supervisor with enhanced display of status information including the graphical display of agent locations. Greater efficiency in supervising and conducting the ACD operations is also achieved using predictive abandonment to predict the pending loss of calls to react accordingly.